WIND
Advantages:
· Wind power is very low cost (after the initial production and installation)
· Wind power is clean (no pollution or carbon dioxide after the initial setup, apart from the comparatively minor emissions produced to manufacture, transport, erect and maintain them)
· Wind is a renewable and sustainable resource. We can use as much as we can today and there will still be more tomorrow.
· Wind power will become cheaper than fossil fuel in the next few years (when the price of carbon is added to coal and oil), and in many places already is.
· Wind turbines are self sufficient, just place them and watch 'em spin! (low maintenance, few moving parts, easy to repair)
· Many people view wind turbines as aesthetically beautiful additions to the landscape.
· Wind prices won't inflate like today's gas prices.
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Disadvantages :
· The strength of the wind is not constant and it varies from zero to storm force. This means that wind turbines do not produce the same amount of electricity all the time. Luckily, wind energy isn't produced in isolation. It's added to widely connected energy grids with 24 hour spot energy markets. It's added to grids that span thousands of kilometres and have many types of generation and demand. Up to about 20% of a grid's generation capacity, it requires very little backup.
· Some people see large wind turbines as unsightly structures and not pleasant or interesting to look at. They believe that wind turbines degrade the landscape.
· Wind turbines generate noise. A subset of people who live near wind turbines find this noise annoying. A subset of those people get stressed by it. Wind turbine noise does not make people sick.
· Birds are killed by wind turbines. Studies show that wind turbines do not threaten the vast majority of bird species populations. Killing birds, in other words, does not threaten birds generally. That said, wind turbines should not be sited on raptor migration routes, as the Altamont wind...